Say Something
by GymGirl904
Summary: Everyone has secrets, and everyone has scars, but Zach's scars are deeper than most. Cammie wants to help him, but doesn't know what to do. When an accident occurs, Zach realizes he's made a mistake. Song by A Great Big World, Say Something. Based off Ally Carter's young adult books, the Gallagher Girls series.


**Say Something**

**Based off Ally Carter's young adult books, the Gallagher Girl series.**

**Song by A Great Big World, Say Something.**

Everything about him was a mystery. He wasn't unsolvable, but he wasn't predictable either. It was somewhat of a paradox to figure him out.

I loved him. I loved so many things about him, but in all honesty I barely knew him. I knew his name, and his smell, and that when he smiled a bright, wide smile it was fake and just him being polite. I knew the way he kissed was unlike anything else. He was always soft, as if to say that I was important and that I truly meant something to him. The passion he held not just in his touch, but in his eyes was what I loved about him more than anything. And his laugh, I've only ever heard it once, and he was laughing at me.

His abs were something else that I loved, not just for the fact that he had an eight pack, but for the fact that they showed a story. Sometimes I would stay with him at his apartment. One night I got to his place late, and when I walked in he was in his room shirtless. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, kissing the top of his shoulder. He smiled at me before going back to what he was doing. I traced my fingers over his back and shoulder blades, feeling the scars that covered its expanse. I questioned him about it and his whole body tensed before he turned around and told me not to worry about it that moment. I nodded my head, smiling, before leading him out into the living room for movies.

About a month later I was sitting in bed reading when Zach came above me, blocking my view of the light, and when I finally looked up he captured my lips with his. The passion behind his kiss told an unspoken story of something much deeper than anything else I'd ever known. The way his lips felt on mine, and the way his arms held himself up, so I could feel every muscle. I ran my hands down his abs, and remembering the stories they told I pulled away and looked at him.

"How did you get these, Zach? What happened to you?"

"You don't have to worry about anything, Cammie. It's fine."

"I know, but…"

"I'm fine," he said looking me in the eyes. I sighed.

"Why won't you just tell me?"

"Because I don't want to talk about it, and I don't need to worry you with my past. Now go to sleep, it's far too late to be up."

There was nothing more said about it that night. There wasn't anything said about it for a while actually. A week later I saw him walk out of the bedroom just putting on a shirt, but I saw his abdomen right before the fabric of his shirt covered it. He saw me looking in that direction, and one hard stare had me turned back to the TV screen as he came and sat on the couch next to me.

His secrets began to deepen when he came home a month later with black and blue bruises covering most of his abdomen and some on his face. I knew him, but I knew almost nothing about his past. I didn't know if he had gotten himself into anything dangerous, or if he was in trouble. All I knew was that he wouldn't talk, and he would shut down after it was brought up.

I wanted to know what had him so closed off, but I also didn't want to cross any lines. This time I lost it though. I couldn't handle not knowing anymore. He came home bleeding and when he removed his shirt I saw the stab wound on his lower left side. He wouldn't go to the hospital no matter how hard I tried to get him there. After I stitched him back up I completely lost it; I just couldn't take it anymore.

"Zach, you can't keep doing this to me."

"Doing what?"

"This," I exclaimed, gesturing between us. "Keeping everything from me. I get the fact that you have secrets that you don't want me to know about and I respect that, but there's a fine line between keeping secrets and not trusting me. Right now I need you to trust me and tell me what the hell you're getting yourself into that has you coming home late, black and blue with stab wounds!"

"I can't tell you!"

"You can't tell me or you won't tell me, because I'm pretty sure it's the latter and not the former. Why won't you just tell me?" I asked, lowering my voice and stepping towards him.

"You don't get it, do you? I'm not telling you because I don't want you to have to live with this, this burden. It's a god damn burden."

"No I don't get it. You think you're protecting me by not telling me, but in reality it's just hurting me. If you were to tell me what's going on then maybe I could be prepared if some tattooed, scary looking guy showed up at our door looking for you and not be totally clueless."

"That won't happen," he reassured me.

"Then why can't you tell me? Just tell me what's going on," I pleaded. He just shook his head.

"I can't, Cammie. I just can't."

"Please just _say something; I'm giving up on you._ I'm giving up that you'll ever let me in, and that you'll ever truly trust me. _I'll be the one if you want me to,_ I'll be there to support you, and I promise that I won't judge you for what you've done."

"Don't say something you could regret."

"_Anywhere_ you would go_ I would've followed you_, but I can't keep doing this. I can't live this way. I can't wait forever for you to never let me in. I love you, but I can't just do nothing forever, so please just _say something, I'm giving up on you._ Just talk to me."

"What do you want to hear from me? Do you want to hear about how much my life sucked? What do you want? I'll talk about the weather if that's what you want." His jaw was clenched.

"I just want you to tell me something about you. Your favorite color, your favorite movie, anything about you because I don't know what to do anymore, _and I'm feeling so small. It was over my head._ I can't make you say anything about this," I gestured between us, noticing that there was still some dried blood on his rib cage. "But at least tell me something because _I know nothing at all _about you."

"Cammie." That was it. It was just my name, nothing else.

"Zach, just something, please. I don't know what else to do, _and I'm still learning to love,_ and _just starting to crawl._ I just need something, anything to tell me you care." Zach looked at me with a blank expression, before he turned to leave.

"_Say something, I'm giving up on you. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you. Anywhere_ you would've gone, _I would've followed you_," I said shaking my head as my heart broke a little bit more when he just shook his head and turned away.

"Let's just say my mom sold my soul to the devil." With that he walked out of the room and I collapsed on the floor and let the silent tears stream down my face. I would never let anybody ever see me cry. I heard the front door slam shut a few seconds later and was left alone to sob in the empty apartment.

Zach shut down after that. His eyes were distant, and he barely spoke a word to anyone. It was two weeks after the night that seemed to change everything. I was already in bed when Zach came home. He tossed his shirt into the dirty clothes bin and slid off his shoes. He collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to take off his jeans. I turned over to look at him, but he just kept looking at the ceiling. I turned back over, facing away from him.

"_Say something, I'm giving up on you. _I'm giving up that you'll ever truly let me in. _And I will swallow my pride you're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye._ I want you to know that I'll always love you. There's no doubt in my mind, but I can't wait forever on something that's never going to happen. I've told you everything about me, every secret, every fear, and I can't wait around for you to never tell me anything. I'm sorry," I said quietly, before sitting up and getting my clothes on.

I packed up a few of my items, grabbed my purse and keys, and turned back to look at him. He was still looking at the ceiling with a blank expression on his face.

"I love you, Zach, good bye." With that I turned and walked out of the room, I walked out of the apartment and didn't look back once. I got into my car and started driving away, and it wasn't until I was a block away that the tears started falling.

Everything I knew about life, and love, revolved around her, and now she was gone. I drove her away. I couldn't help but look back at her retreating form as she walked out of my apartment, and a minute later I heard her car start before it was just a noise in the far distance. I rolled over onto her side of the bed and just laid there hugging her pillow and crying myself to sleep.

I woke up the next morning with a headache and an emptiness of some kind in my chest. I moved through the day with no emotion, no feeling of any kind. The next day was the same, and the day after that. I didn't know where she went, and I didn't know where her friends lived, or even their numbers. Now, more than anything, I wish I would have gotten their numbers that one time Cammie introduced me to them. Each night I would cry myself to sleep with the realization that she was gone, she wasn't here, and she's gone. I let the best thing that ever happened to me get away and there was nothing I could do about it.

I thought about that night over and over again in my mind; I thought about how if I'd just told her something, she would still be here. I was so worried about keeping her safe from my past that I didn't realize I was hurting her more by not telling her than I would've been by telling her. I just hope I'll have the chance to tell her everything she deserves to know. She was right, I knew she was; she couldn't wait forever for me to let her in.

A month after she left, there was a knock at my door. It was pouring outside, so I wasn't surprised when I opened my door to see the person on the other side soaked through. I was surprised, however, to see Macey McHenry standing on my porch. She was one of Cammie's closest friends and I remembered her from the time Cammie introduced me to her. The other thing that surprised me was that she had tear stains running down her face and some of her mascara was smeared.

"Macey, what are you doing here? What's wrong?"

"I didn't know where else to go. I knew that Cammie was really close to you, and I thought you deserved to know." I looked at her, confused.

"What are you talking about?" My heart started beating faster and I started to panic. "What happened?"

"Zach, Cammie's… Cammie's dying. A week and a half ago she was in a car accident. Someone ran a red light and hit her car. She's been in a coma. The doctor's say that there was a lot of trauma and they don't know if she'll make it. The swelling in her brain hasn't gone down any; if anything it has gotten worse. She's at Oak Leaf Hospital, room 153." I heard what she was saying, but a part of me wasn't listening. Cammie was in a car accident. Cammie's dying. I have to get to Cammie.

"Macey, do you want to come in and dry off and calm down some before we go to the hospital?" I asked her as I opened the door further. There was no point in us driving in distraught and also getting into a car accident. I knew that I had to keep it together for her sake and for my own. She nodded her head before she walked into my apartment. I went and got her a towel and made her some hot chocolate to warm her up.

Once we got to the hospital Macey led the way to the private room Cammie was in. When we walked in Bex and Liz, Cammie's other friends, were sitting by her bed. When I saw Cammie I was on the edge of breaking. Macey must have realized this because she told Bex and Liz that they should all go get something to eat while I had my time alone with her. The first tear fell as I walked over to Cammie's bed and grabbed her cold hand in mine.

"I'm sorry, Cammie, I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I was just trying to protect you, and now look what's happened. I'm not leaving you, Cammie. I love you." I bent down and kissed her hand. For the next two hours I talked to her about what it was like for me when she wasn't there, and how Macey came to my house to tell me that she had been in a bad car accident.

Before I knew it, her friends had come back and the doctor walked in.

"You must be Mr. Goode?" He asked looking at the file in front of him.

"Yes, you can call me Zach, though, Dr….?" I wasn't quite sure what his name was.

"Shepard. Dr. Shepard. May I ask how you know Ms. Morgan?"

"I'm her boyfriend. I was wondering if you could tell us how she's doing."

"Yes, I'm afraid she isn't doing any better. We did more tests to see if there was any change. We did an MRI with contrast to see what damage was done to the brain. She has a lot of bruises along her body and three broken ribs. Since there was damage to her chest we decided to do an EKG for safe measures. An EKG is the recording of the electrical activity of the heart. We're monitoring her heart to make sure there are no irregularities that could become problematic. The swelling in her brain is called elevated intracranial pressure, or what is most commonly used, cerebral edema. What she had was a TBI, or a traumatic brain injury, and because of that we're going to keep a very close eye on her for the next couple of days. Since her injuries were so severe her body's response to her injuries may increase the swelling that is already present. If the brain has too much swelling it can prevent fluids from leaving the brain, and then at that time we would have to do surgery. Sometimes in car accidents the force of impact is so severe that there can actually be some broken pieces of bone that can puncture blood vessels in part of the head. So we are going to redo the X-Ray to make sure nothing else is going on that we missed. It's unlikely that's the case, but I want you to know everything that can happen in her situation. If you have any questions just ask me, and if you need anything the nurses on this floor are very nice. Some of our top residents will come in every few hours to check up on things. Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?"

"No I think we're good for now. Thank you, doctor," Macey spoke after a moment's silence. The doctor nodded his head and stepped out of the room, leaving behind the chart.

"Just so you know; it's blue. A month ago when you asked me what my favorite color was; it's blue. I was stupid not to tell you that it was blue, but I didn't want to get into the details of why it's my favorite color. It doesn't really matter now, so here it goes. I love the color blue because it reminds me of the ocean, and the ocean reminds me of you. You always said that you wanted to go to the ocean someday with me. The ocean reminds me of mystery and adventure, and when I was young I always wanted to take someone on an adventure. I always knew that that person would mean the world to me; I had it all planned out. Along the way I lost sight of that and let the darkness overtake me. When I met you, it was like there was still a chance to come out of this black hole I had put myself into. You reminded me of what I wanted when I was a kid. My one regret is that I pushed you away when you were trying to save me, because I didn't want to hurt you. If I had thought about everything for more than two seconds I would have seen just how strong you were and that you could have handled anything that was thrown at you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I should have put more faith into you, and for that I'm sorry." I squeezed her hand as I swallowed back the emotion that wanted to escape. "Please just _say something; I'm giving up on you_ waking up. You aren't getting better and it's been a little over a month, _and I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you._ I didn't know how to reach you, and I'm sorry."

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying." I turned around to see Macey standing in the doorway to Cammie's room. I tried to smile at her as she walked in and sat on the edge of the bed next to where my chair was. "You know she loved you right?" I nodded, allowing her to continue. "Even after she left she told us that she just needed time. She was always going to go back to you; she just needed time. I thought you had a right to know. You've been pretty hard on yourself, and it's not your fault."

"I pushed her away. I made her leave. If it weren't for me maybe she wouldn't have been out driving when she was hit by that car. It's because I couldn't tell her one damn thing about myself. I pushed her away," I said quieter, as I looked at her sleeping body. The beeping of the machine that was hooked up to her had become a familiar sound to me. Steady, unwavering.

"You say that, but you're wrong. It was never your fault. We all know that, but you don't. It was the driver who hit her who's to blame: she was texting and ran the red light. You can't keep beating yourself down because of it." I started to say something, but Macey beat me to it. "What would Cammie think? She wouldn't want you to drown yourself in this. You always say that she saved you, but you're the one that saved her." With that Macey got up, patted my shoulder, and walked out of the room in silence; leaving me to think back over her words.

"I know that you can hear me, Cammie. The doctor's say that even if you're in a coma you can still hear what's going on around you. Please, wake up. I can't stand not having you here, _and anywhere I would have followed you._ I want to be with you forever, I need you to wake up, Cammie, please. Just _say something_, do something; anything, _I'm giving up on you._"

The sound of the machines beeping was steady, constant, and when the tear fell onto her hand I hoped that she could also feel that. Maybe then she would come back. One second the beeping was steady and the next it went up before her heart rate on the monitor went dead. There was no heart beat detected.

"Cammie." That was the only panicked word I was able to get out before a resident rushed in.

"Code Blue! She's coding!" she yelled as a cart was wheeled in.

Cammie's bed was lowered back until it was flat. I must have been trying to get to her because I realized Bex and Macey were trying to drag me out of the room. I was left looking through the blinds as they yelled, "Clear," and Cammie was shocked. There was still no change.

"Charge to two-hundred, clear!" Again the heart monitor stayed flat lined. "Charge to three-hundred, clear!" One of the nurses saw that the blinds were open, so she walked over and shut the blinds; leaving us to listen to the long beep of her heart. I was well aware of the tears streaming down my face as Bex and Macey tried pulling me away from her room.

"Charge again," someone called from the room.

"We've done everything we can. We have to call it."

"Charge again! Clear!"

The four of us were sitting in the waiting room for what seemed like forever when Dr. Shepard finally walked out. I lifted my head up when he walked over to us.

"Mr. Goode, we did everything we could for Cammie. For some reason her heart just stopped; we don't know why. Annabeth, the resident on call, did two more rounds of shock than she was supposed to. They were about to call it, when Cammie's heart started beating again on its own. If Ms. Sampson had not done those two extra shocks Cammie would not have survived. We ran some more tests just to see what was going on. There is no change in her tests. It seems extraordinary that she came back to us, she is very lucky. You can go see her now if you would like to."

"Thank you doctor," Bex said as we walked through the halls to her room. Cammie looked as peaceful as ever; the only difference was the burn marks on her upper chest.

"Cammie, it's been two months. There's no change in your tests. We want you back, please just come back. I'm sorry for everything. I've been really hopeful this whole time, and I've been telling myself that you'll get better; that you'll make it out of this. It pains me to say that my hope is wavering, so please just_ say something, I'm giving up on you_ and I don't want to. Just a small sign; anything to tell me you'll be okay. Please, Cammie; I love you. No matter what, I'll always be there for you. We'll get through the thick and the thin, the good and the bad. We'll make it through this. You just have to wake up. Please just _say something_…"

I left it hanging, hoping for anything; something. I fell asleep in the chair that has been beside her bed for two months now, and is almost like home to me now, as bad as that sounds.

A few days after that, it was late at night and just the night nurses on duty. I was alone with Cammie because the girls went home to get clean clothes. Her hand rested in mine and I just sat there watching her. She looked so peaceful; but at the same time she looked pained and troubled. Like a fallen angel trying to find her way back to where she was supposed to be. I was just drifting off when I felt her finger twitch against mine. I sat up straighter and looked over at her. Her finger moved a little more and I smiled; I felt at peace. That's all there was, but it was the sign of hope I needed to keep going; to keep believing that she would be better soon. Never give up hope on what's to come because anything can happen.

The End

**Author's Note: First of all, I would like to thank my best friend, Jay, for introducing me to the song Say Something, by A Great Big World. Secondly, I'd like to thank her for helping me come up with some ideas for this story. Also, she has been there for me these past few months when I've needed her. Three months ago I relapsed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome again, right in the middle of my Gymnastics Season, and she's been there for me. I've barely even been able to make it to school for the last three months, so it's really nice to have her support; especially since the last time I got sick I pretty much had no one. Even if she's in another state for a Gymnastics Meet, she's there. So, thank you, Jay, for everything.**

**The song, like I said before, is by A Great Big World and is called Say Something. I hope you enjoyed this story.**

**Quote: Sometimes when I say, "I'm okay," I want someone to look me in the eyes, hug me tight and say, "I know you're not." - Unknown**

**-GymGirl904.**


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